Tainted Smiles
by Holytaxaccountantcountsmytaxes
Summary: XM:FC. During their recruitment trip, Charles and Erik get into a car crash. When Charles receives a troubling memory from his friend, boundaries are tested, crossed; destroyed? Oneshot, Slash.


A/N: I have to admit that this story is merely based on the movies since I have never read _any _of the comics. I am also not sure if I'm yet up to the task of portraying the characters correctly, but I had to succumb to this idea that was swirling about in my brain. It's AU anyway, so blah.

**Warning**: If you can't take bloody or gooey messes, please don't read! Also, light hints at rape, but not graphically. Some language. To top it off, English is _not _my native language, so if anything might sound weird, there's your explanation. Now, have fun and please leave some reviews. They make me all tingly inside :)

__I don't own the X-Men movies, comics or whatever.__

* * *

><p>"Quit staring at me."<p>

"I don't."

The dreary sound of the engine had accompanied them since they had entered the car hours ago. To Charles, it might as well have been days. He wasn't sure anymore. The gray landscape beside them seemed to stretch on forever.

"You look tired, my friend," he stated forcefully. "How long have you been driving already?"

"Not too long."

Judging from the growing darkness outside, Charle's theory of _days_ instead of hours seemed to grow more convincing. He suppressed a sigh.

"We should swap sides. I don't want to end up driving into a tree or something."

The dark look he earned upon that would have sent most other people into hiding. For about two seconds they stared at each other. Then, the other man fixed his eyes onto the road again and ignored him.

"Erik."

"Yes?"

"Pull over. Don't be a girl."

A huff.

Surprisingly, after just a few minutes, Charles was the one sitting behind the steering wheel with Erik just beside him, bent uncomfortably in his seat.

_You should sleep_, the telepath sent his thoughts to his companion.

_Leave my thoughts alone_, came the answer. Not his best mood today.

A few hours of driving later, Charles rather felt than heard Erik's soft, regular breathing. He grinned inwardly. _Seems like he finally succumbed to my counting __sheep__ in his head._

He knew there would be payback, but he didn't mind at that time.

It had become dark, the weak remains of a thinning moon only a parody of luminescence. Somewhere around midnight, they were driving through a small town Charles had never heard of before. It was completely quiet and he assumed that everyone was already asleep. Big oak trees adorned either side of the road, protecting the artful houses from slithering cars.

_Warum...?_

Charles turned his head to the right. He could have sworn to have heard something, but Erik was still asleep. Suspicious, he narrowed his eyes. Maybe he had only...

_Warum...?_

There it was again, louder this time. He wasn't sure what to make of the seemingly peaceful expression on Erik's face, because he was sure the other man had broadcast something to him, something distressing, even if he still wondered _why_... and the pain he had felt was all but peaceful and -

_Now he was sitting in a pit, on cold, wet stone and there were shadows passing by, laughing and jeering and spitting on him. Spit and piss and rotten food. He was shoved against a wall. Tainted! So tainted._

_Then he stood, was dragged and shoved and his heart was beating so fast and then he was in that room._

_He knew that room, he knew that pain. There was nothing to be afraid of. He knew that pain. He didn't have to fear it. He knew that pain. He didn't have to fear it. He knew that pain. He knew that pain. He knew that pain._

_He feared it._

_Then there was Herr Doktor, and he was smiling. He didn't like smiling. _

"_Hello, Erik." Tainted smile, tainted smile._

_"I have something for you."_

_Tainted smile, tainted smile. His heart -_

Bright light blended him, honking, split-second reaction. Pulling the steering wheel around. A tree. A tree. A tree!

Darkness.

* * *

><p>The sound of a person bustling around woke him up, but he could not yet open his eyes. His head throbbed and he couldn't move his right arm. It felt like it was wrapped in a huge chunk of wool. Or cotton candy. <em>That<em> he would have liked.

… _probably fucking the house maid right now, that son of a motherfucking bitch..._

A woman in her mid thirties. He felt a sharp pain in his left arm and stirred. A soft groan escaped his lips. _Where am I?_

"Oh, you're awake, Mr... Xavier," he heard the same voice speak aloud.

Slowly, Charles opened his eyes and was instantly dazzled by the sunlight streaming through the window. The woman, a red-headed nurse, went to draw the curtains close and helped him sit upright.

"Where am I? What happened?" he asked drowsily.

"You're in the hospital. Got into a car accident," the nurse answered curtly, pressing her red lips together. "You can be glad not to have rammed the truck, or you wouldn't..."

The memories came crashing down on him. He opened his eyes, wide.

"Where's Erik?" he asked the nurse suddenly, interrupting her speech.

She was caught off-guard for a moment and only looked at him surprised. For a few seconds, not even a thought could be heard. "You mean the man who came with you?" she finally asked and Charles found that her voice had a quite annoying pitch to it. Sounded like a little girl in puberty.

"He's in another room, right down the floor. I think he's stilled passed out, but... wait, you're not supposed to get up yet!"

Tugging at some wires in his arm, Charles swung his feet around and touched the cold floor. As he stood, another wave of nausea hit him and he stumbled slightly, trying to hold onto something with his right hand, only to find out that it was plastered, probably broken. The nurse was at his side instantly.

"Please sit down again, Mr. Xavier. You have a concussion and shouldn't be wandering around like this." Her voice was making him drowsy. His head really _did_ hurt, he noted dully.

"No... I have to..."

He had to see Erik. After all...

_"We should swap sides. I don't want to end up driving into a tree or something."_

He didn't know how something like this could have happened.

With a look of compassion Charles would never have thought the nurse capable of, she offered to get a wheelchair for him. He nodded. There really was no choice.

"I'll be right back."

When she'd finally left the room, Charles breathed out and relaxed into his pillow. He hadn't noticed until then that he was tense and nervous.

_Tainted smile, tainted smile._

His heart beat fast. His breath came out in shallow rasps.

What he had seen unsettled him, left him restless. He didn't know how to handle the pain that shot through him, all the anger and fear. It lingered inside of him, in his mind, his heart. It teared at his soul, tore at it, tore at it, tore it apart. He was being swallowed.

_He knew that pain. He knew that pain._

_He_ didn't know that pain. It was Erik's pain. He knew that. Or was it his? Why was it his?

He was confused and anxious. It had never occurred to him before that his ability could fail and do harm to him and to the people that mattered to him. Not in _that_ way at least. He had always thought of his telepathy to be impenetrable. To be absolute.

He had thought he was in control.

But this was fucked up.

It was tainted.

"So, here I am again, Mr. Xavier," he heard the nurse from before enter the room, carrying a metal wheelchair with her. An unwanted image came to his mind, of Erik making the wheelchair and Charles fly around the room, laughing freely. He wasn't laughing now. He was still unconscious.

"Should I take you to, uh," she was looking at her file, "Mr. Lensherr's room now?"

Dumb, dumb.

"No, I'll be fine by myself, thank you."

With some effort, Charles heaved himself from his bed and sat down. A brief smile at the nurse. She didn't even seem to notice it.

… _and maybe the gardener, too. __I've never __seen __such __a female gardener before..._

Cautiously, Charles pushed the door to Erik's room open. The curtains were pulled close and no sunlight was allowed to enter. He didn't like it; it was too dark.

Slowly, he rolled towards the figure on the bed, who was oblivious to his surroundings. What else besides darkness could be seen either way?

Erik's features weren't peaceful like in the car. His breathing wasn't soft. His face screamed emotions, hurt, anger, more hurt, and his breathing was ragged. There was a thin sheet of sweat on his brow.

Charles stretched his hand to wipe it away, but stopped in mid-air. He wondered...

_"I have something for you."_

_Tainted smile, tainted smile. His heart -_

He wondered about the memory he had received from his friend. And he was finally sure that it had been a memory. Had he just seen a bit more, had he been able to delve just a little further...

But he couldn't do it. He had promised not to intrude Erik's mind.

_But this felt different._

After all, why would he have received the memory during that car ride had Erik not consented to having Charles see it...? Maybe he wanted him to know...

He reached out with his mind and gently touched the surface of his friend's thoughts.

Then pulled back.

_No. I don't want to._

… _do I, really?_

The man in the bed stirred, but did not wake. He seemed to be mumbling something, forming words with his mouth, but did not talk.

Finally, Charles let his hand touch his friend's brow and gently stroked some stray hair out of his face, stopping at his cheek. It felt warm in his hand. Too warm, almost.

With every passing second of touching, the thoughts in Charles' head became louder, stronger, more defined.

With Erik, some things were different.

His mind was different.

He couldn't control it. He couldn't control all of this. He couldn't. He wouldn't.

He really shouldn't...

_Spit and piss and rotten food._

_There was Herr Doktor again, and he was smiling. He didn't like smiling. _

_"Hello, Erik." Tainted smile, tainted smile._

_"I have something for you."_

_Tainted smile, tainted smile. His heart beat fast. He could hear it, loudly._

_He hoped it would spin off the record player._

_The door opened, and for a short moment he could hear the screams of people not yet dying._

_And suddenly there was that man and he knew him and he smiled at him broadly and rotten teeth, tainted teeth and breath like corpses and he got sick. That man had shoved him against a wall._

_"You see, Erik, Mr. Albrecht here had a little accident in his past, resulting in a metal plate being implanted in his head. Rather ironical, don't you think?"_

_He had felt the metal all along._

_The man didn't know about his fate. He still smiled. Teeth like rotten meat. His breath like death. _

_Erik found he should become a poet._

_"Why?" he whispered._

_"Because that's what you do."_

_Trembling, he extends his hands and he presses his teeth firmly together so he does not scream because he would never scream and the man looks curious and begins to scratch his head._

_Then the man screams because he hadn't had his teeth pressed together and because of the small metal plate being slowly sucked out of his head, mashing his brain to pulp, making his eyes pop out of their sockets._

_Eyes that could never look at him again. That could never hurt him again._

_Then the man doesn't scream anymore but still stands because the plate isn't fully out of his body but there's blood and brain lying about everywhere and there he stands shoving no one no more._

_He has to laugh and cry and scream and blood and smiles. Herr Doktor now smiles and applaudes him._

_"Sehr gut, Erik."_

"Do you enjoy this?"

Seething anger, red dots lining his vision.

Erik had pinned his eyes on Charles and for a man who had just awoken from unconsciousness, all sweaty and slightly delirious from fever, he seemed rather lucid. His rage was tangible.

"I..."

He was sick.

Normally, Charles would feel guilt wash all over him, peeling away his thoughts and dreams and smiles and hopes. As it was, all he felt was something he couldn't quite place. And he was sick.

_I'm so sorry_. Not for what he had done. For what he had seen.

"Why were you in my mind?" Erik pressed through his teeth and Charles noticed that it was only half anger. The other half was pain.

_Because you wanted it._

_I'd never want it._

Hurt.

Nervously, Charles fiddled with his gown, looking anywhere but his friend's eyes. He didn't know why, but he was ashamed. Just a few seconds before, everything had made sense to him. He had been sure his friend was calling out to him, reaching for him.

Now he wasn't even sure anymore if his thoughts had been real, or if he had betrayed himself. Tricked himself into thinking that what he did was right.

And it hadn't been right.

"How do you feel?" Charles asked in a feeble attempt to ease the tension in the room.

"Perfect."

Great. This was getting nowhere.

He sighed softly and leaned back into his wheelchair, only then noticing that his hand had still been at his friend's cheek. As he drew back from the other man, he felt a piercing coldness running through his veins and an urging desire to put his hand right back where it had been before. Where it belonged. He resisted.

Charles inspected his companion closer, spotting dark circles under his eyes and an underlying weariness that adorned all of his features. But he guessed that could be expected after such an accident. He doubted he looked any better.

Nearly all of Erik's rage and anger had dissipated, and all that was left resembled a deflated balloon animal. Charle's didn't think Erik looked like a balloon. Or an animal. Most definitely not both. But it was a fair enough relation.

_I really thought you had reached out to me._

There was no reaction.

_Please._

"Maybe I did," came the whispered reply. "And maybe I did not. How should I know?"

Charles suddenly felt all the pain, all the tiredness his friend endured. Not through reading the other's mind, but through hearing his voice. His sad eyes reflected the memories Charles had seen moments before. Moments that seemed like eternity.

Charles had never seen his friend like that before. It might have been the crash, the injuries, his clouded consciousness, flawed lucidity... or maybe it was all himself. He was vulnerable. He was like a child. He was like himself as a child. Charles didn't like it. He didn't feel that sick anymore. Deeply tired...

Timidly, he reached out again, gently lying his hand on the other man's cheek, caressing his warm skin. The pain inside of both of them set his mind on fire. He felt like he would split any second, tear his soul into tiny shreds. He knew it would never happen, but it felt like it. It really felt like it.

"It wasn't your choice, Erik," he whispered as calmly as he possibly could. "He made you do it. You didn't have a choice."

"No, Charles. _I_ wanted it."

"You _think_ you wanted it."

"I _know_ I wanted it."

"I know I want _you_."

Slowly, he pulled closer to his friend, immersed in his troubled, red rimmed eyes, feeling nothing but his own heartbeat, hearing nothing but the other man's heartbeat and the blood in his ears. Erik's eyes widened in surprise but couldn't fully take in what was happening yet. Charles pulled closer still.

_Don't, don't_, he pleaded to himself inwardly, trying to stop himself, trying to prevent himself from breaking his friend's trust again in such a short time, should he not consent to it. But he couldn't pull his traitorous body away.

_Dont, don't._

_Do_, he heard Erik's voice in his head.

And finally, he closed his eyes as he gently nudged soft lips, his mind and soul reveling in this contact he had craved so desperately. Slowly, he opened his mouth a bit to fully take in the other man's lips. His heart skipped a beat when Erik followed and returned the kiss. Nothing seemed to matter anymore, as not only their lips but also their minds touched and gently caressed each other, calming each other's soul.

Then, they pulled apart.

Silence.

"Ich hasse dich."

Pleading eyes met his.

"I know."

* * *

><p>Here some translations, in case you were wondering:<p>

Warum? – Why?

Sehr gut – Very good

Ich hasse dich – I hate you


End file.
